600,000 cups were sold on the first day! After apples, another common fruit has unexpectedly gone viral.

Following the viral popularity of apples, the common everyday fruit orange has also become a trending hit across social media platforms.

Recently, Nayuki launched its first custom blended milk coffee "Sunset Orange Sea", which creates a sunset glow atmosphere with layered orange hues, and immediately ranked top 1 in sales of its coffee series right after release.

The Moli Nai Bai Zhenwang Orange series sold 607,000 cups on its first day of launch, and has become the "popular autumn aesthetic drink" sought after by young consumers.

How did oranges, once only available as limited-edition offerings for festivals, suddenly become so popular?

Sold 600,000 Cups on Launch Day

Orange Drinks Flood the Market with New Releases

Right after the Start of Autumn, the atmosphere-driven competition in the tea drink industry kicked off, and the first breakout autumn element is orange.

On August 12, Nayuki launched the new "Sunset Orange Sea", which uses Thai oranges, fresh milk, salty cheese curd, and Arabica golden award beans to create a four-layer complex structure. As soon as you open it, you can smell the fruity aroma of oranges, which blends with the milky fragrance of salty cheese curd, without covering up the coffee flavor.

The drink looks like it puts the sunset scenery into a cup, and you can get a perfect shareable photo with a casual shot. Many consumers commented that every sip brings a different experience. According to official statistics, the product immediately topped the sales TOP1 of Nayuki's coffee series, driving the revenue of the coffee series to increase by nearly 40% month-on-month.

On the Start of Autumn day, Moli Nai Bai launched new products "Zhenwang Orange" and "Zhenwang Creamy Orange", which uses a blend of Guangxi green tangerine, Thai orange and Jeju Island honey orange, with rich layers of sweet and sour taste and extremely high recognition. It quickly gained a large number of "orange lovers", and was called "the ceiling of autumn atmosphere" by netizens. The Zhenwang Orange series achieved sales of 607,000 cups on the first day of launch.

Also targeting the Start of Autumn node, Zhouyeshijiu Tea & Alcohol launched the orange soft candy flavored butter beer "Orange Sunset", which blends orange and pomelo juice, butter milk and German craft beer.

According to its official Xiaohongshu introduction, this product draws development inspiration from "Every Day Facing the Sun", a best-selling summer orange iced tea from Cha Yan Yue Se, and on this basis, it creates a new orange product with a slight intoxicating feeling.

Looking further back, Guming launched the new Thai orange series, releasing 3 products at one go; Mixue Ice City launched lemon orange tea; Baifen Cha launched Thai orange yogurt juice ice; there is also the Siam Big Orange series from Yinggehun, and the "Orange Sky" from Thursday Late...

Orange specialty stores are also on the rise. Jishi Juxiang Tea, which focuses on orange drinks, has quietly opened 4 stores; Shanghai new brand Lemeng has gained attention with signature products "BOOM! Orange" and "Sunset Orange Light Milkshake".

On the retail side, Hema launched the sea salt Hyuga Natsudaidai latte, expanding the flavor boundary of more bottled drinks with citrus taste.

For a while, new orange products have been unveiled intensively. The once inconspicuous common fruit has become a new hotspot in the tea drink industry between summer and autumn.

Source: Xiaohongshu blogger @h. Authorized for use

Year-round New Releases + Whole-fruit Texture Experience

The Potential of Oranges Has Been Severely Underestimated

1. Thai Oranges Make Up for Seasonal Shortcomings, Oranges Start to Show "Variety Specialization"

The popularization of Thai oranges is a key part of why the orange track has attracted widespread attention.

"In the past, when brands launched orange products, they usually followed the ripening cycle of domestic fresh fruits, with the peak of new releases from November every year to February of the next year," introduced Yang Shizhong, co-founder of Baifen Cha and head of its R&D center.

But this year is different. The emergence of Thai oranges has extended the supply cycle of oranges. Coupled with the maturity of technologies such as NFC and HPP, citrus fruits from different producing areas can complement each other, and brands can stably launch orange drinks all year round.

An even bigger change is that the industry is starting to move away from the general use of oranges, and move towards variety segmentation.

Pan Shengyi, a senior industry R&D specialist and head of catering supply chain, believes that oranges are following the same development path as grapes.

In the early years, consumers only knew fresh grape tea, and later began to know Kyoho, Summer Black, and Shine Muscat. Citrus will go through the same process: from general oranges to Thai oranges, honey oranges, Wogan oranges, and Harumi oranges, further subdivided into producing areas and ripening seasons. Brands are increasingly emphasizing "which specific variety of orange I use", and what unique flavor it can bring.

In the newly launched "Zhenwang Orange" of Moli Nai Bai, Guangxi green tangerine brings a slight bitter taste, Thai oranges provide acidity and unique peel oil aroma, and Jeju Island honey oranges offer a sweet and smooth finish.

2. Pursuing "Whole-fruit Sensation", Making You Feel Like Eating a Real Orange

The flavor potential of oranges has actually long been underestimated.

A few years ago, fruit teas usually pursued strong sourness, strong sweetness and strong stimulating taste, and lemon and passion fruit seized the market with their distinct characteristics. But now consumers prefer refreshing, natural drinks with lower drinking burden and clear fruit recognition.

Oranges just meet such demands. They have aroma, acidity and sweetness, but are not as sharp as lemons, nor as heavy as some tropical fruits.

Pan Shengyi judges that good orange drinks in the future will not just be "sweet and sour orange juice". The pulp, juice sacs, peel essential oil, slight bitterness brought by the white pith, and the floral aroma of ripe fruits can all be integrated to build a three-dimensional taste.

R&D teams are trying to restore this "whole-fruit sensation". The front note is citrus essential oil aroma, the middle note is the sweet and sour taste of juice, and the back note has a slight real peel aftertaste. "When consumers drink the drink, it feels like they are eating a real orange."

3. Extremely Versatile, "Orange +" Innovation Has Huge Potential

Oranges have extremely high versatility, and are known in the industry as "connecting fruit".

Pan Shengyi shared several sets of matching formulas:

Tea base: Oranges paired with jasmine, cape jasmine, osmanthus, and michelia alba, the collision of sweet aroma and floral aroma easily creates a high-level taste experience.

Dairy products: Whether it is milk green tea, yogurt or cream, after solving the product stability problem, it has more texture than pure fruit tea.

Fruits: Use grapes to add sweet aroma, pomegranate to add color and astringency, passion fruit to add tropical aroma, to enrich the taste layers.

Coffee, sparkling water, coconut water: Cross-category integration brings familiar yet novel orange experiences.

Yang Shizhong mentioned that Thai oranges can be used to make sorbet and gelato, which comes with natural pulp granularity, with both great appearance and taste.

"Oranges can also be paired with white chocolate or dark chocolate, added with white tea, to create very rich flavor layers, and then decorated with orange peel dices to add a unique chewy texture," Yang Shizhong said.

4. From "Good Luck with Big Orange" to "Daily Healing", the Product Life Cycle is Extended

The emotional value of orange drinks has also been iterated this year.

In the past, new releases were mostly combined with auspicious meanings such as "great luck with oranges" to match the festive atmosphere. But this recent wave of orange drinks returns to daily companionship, emphasizing the healing feeling.

Nayuki's "Sunset Orange Sea" focuses on the lazy atmosphere of sunset glow, targeting the relaxation of urban people after work, or light social interactions between friends, conveying the emotions of self-pleasure and relaxation.

Moli Nai Bai co-branded with the jewelry brand YVMIN, and made a little bear peripheral product with orange peel. The relevant person in charge said that orange is bright and warm, hoping that when consumers drink this cup of tea, they can pay more attention to themselves and capture the healing moments in life.

From pursuing good luck to self-pleasure, from festival limited edition to daily companionship, the life cycle of orange drinks has thus been extended.

Citrus Drinks Have Huge Development Potential This Autumn and Winter

Since the beginning of this year, whether it is "Bitter End Sweet Orange", tiger stripe orange latte, yuzu cold brew, or orange milk tea, citrus-based drinks are gaining more and more presence.

Many industry R&D personnel said that citrus is not a short-term trend, but a large product category that can maintain stable popularity all year round, and there is still considerable room for exploration at present.

Liu Zejian, the champion of the 2026 New Tea Drink Competition held by Kamen, mentioned that now consumers' tolerance for sweet and greasy drinks has decreased, and the demand for refreshing, highly aromatic drinks has risen.

Citrus has the advantages of high aroma, greasiness relief and juiciness. Launched in autumn, it can not only inherit the refreshing taste of summer lemon tea, but also has more pulp texture and sweetness than pure lemon, which is very suitable for the transition between summer and autumn.

Pan Shengyi judges that "Citrus has the opportunity to become an important fruit flavor this autumn and winter."

But he also reminded that the real competition is not "whether you have orange products", but "what makes your cup of orange drink different from others".

When all brands start to make orange drinks, "orange" itself is no longer an innovation. Only those that can highlight variety differences, real fruit texture and unique product structure can stand out.

This autumn and winter, which citrus drinks will become breakout hits? Let's wait and see.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Kamen" (ID: KamenClub), written by Zhang Jin, authorized for release by 36Kr.